Pouring a Rainbow

The Rainbow

This is my first blog post. I usually get my teaching ideas from other bloggers and internet websites. Every once in a while, however, I come up with a pretty good idea on my own. I love lessons on color and on rainbows and on science. This incorporated them all. I use this lesson when teaching about Noah's Ark. In addition, I try to show the children pictures of actual rainbows so that they can see the spectrum of colors themselves.

After I finished all my photos, I realized that the glasses of clear water should actually have been empty. You should start with 7 glasses. Fill the first, third and fifth with water. Add red food coloring to the first one, yellow to the third one and blue to the fifth one.

Next pour a little of the red one and a little of the blue one into the seventh glass. Although the color is hard to see here, you have purple or violet.

Next pour a little of the the red one and a little of the yellow one into the second glass to make orange.

Now pour a little yellow and a little blue into the fourth glass to make green.

Finally, pour a little blue and a little purple into the sixth glass. This will make a darker shade of blue or indigo.

Now you have all the colors of the rainbow - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. (Roy G. Biv)

This exercise/ experiment can be done by children using small clear plastic cups and pouring or by using small condiment cups and droppers. I usually do the large glasses for a demonstration while the children work with the droppers.